Good morning. Today, 11/23, is the second holiest day of the year for math nerds after Pi Day. Why? Because it's Fibonacci Day. If you forgot about the Fibonacci series from middle school, it goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on, formed by taking the sum of the previous two numbers to create the next number in the sequence. Fibonacci numbers can be found in many aspects of the natural world, including petal arrangements in flowers, the shape of hurricanes, a honeybee's family tree, and even DNA molecules. So yeah, to quote Jack Black in School of Rock, "Math is a really cool thing." —Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch | | | READ THIS TO REMAIN A SUBSCRIBER Want to keep receiving Morning Brew? Clicking on newsletter links is the only way for us to know you are reading (and enjoying) Morning Brew. If you don't click by next month, you will stop receiving this newsletter. Click here to let us know that you're still an active subscriber. Thanks! | | | |  | Nasdaq | 15,854.76 | | | | | S&P | 4,682.94 | | |  | Dow | 35,619.25 | | | | | 10-Year | 1.627% | | | | | Bitcoin | $56,354.80 | | | | | Mastercard | $321.30 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: After President Biden said he'd stick with Jerome Powell as Fed chair for the next four years, stocks closed mostly lower with interest rate hikes on the horizon. And growing concerns over renewed Covid restrictions in Europe thwacked payments companies like Mastercard.
- Energy: The White House will announce a plan to release supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve today in coordination with several other countries, Bloomberg reports. The move is intended to cool off skyrocketing gas prices.
| | | Alex Wong/Getty Images Get ready to keep seeing this guy  in the Brew, because President Biden just selected Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve for another four years. - The president also nominated Lael Brainard, a Fed Governor who was also in the running to replace Powell, as vice chair of the Fed.
By choosing Fed vets Powell and Brainard, Biden showed he's not interested in shaking up the status quo during a time when Americans are worried about higher inflation and the economic recovery from the pandemic isn't quite complete. The first four years Life as the world's most powerful economic official has been stressful for Powell, a former private equity executive appointed by President Trump. Despite picking Powell, Trump (when he had a Twitter account) frequently lobbed insults at him for raising interest rates during a period of economic growth, saying Powell had "no 'guts,' no sense, no vision!" Then came Covid in spring 2020, when Powell took unprecedented measures to prop up the economy and calm financial markets. His actions won bipartisan applause for preventing an economic calamity, and for laying the groundwork for a rapid recovery. The next four years The job won't get any easier. The highest inflation in 31 years has put more pressure on the Fed to wind down its pandemic-era stimulus measures and hike interest rates...without sparking a recession in the process. And while he's pretty popular in DC, Powell has some critics. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has attacked him for neglecting to factor climate change into monetary policy (Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would oppose Powell's nomination), and a recent ethics scandal over officials' stock trades has damaged the Fed's reputation. Finally, the Fed must consider whether to move forward with developing a digital currency, as China has done. Big picture: With the reappointment of Powell, Biden continues a longstanding US tradition of presidents keeping Fed chairs appointed by their predecessors, only bucked when Trump replaced now-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen with Powell in 2018.—NF | | | Francis Scialabba Target employees can finally spend their Thanksgiving like the rest of us: having a meltdown over forgetting to brine the turkey. The "come on, you need more travel mugs" retailer said yesterday that it will permanently shift to closing its doors on Thanksgiving, a change it made temporarily last year to limit crowds during the pandemic. Some background: In the last 20 years, large retail chains started merging Black Friday into Thanksgiving to compete with online retailers like Amazon. But last year, Covid forced stores to rethink inviting hordes of people to climb over each other for a PS5. Other large retailers like Macy's, Kohl's, and Walmart will also close for Thanksgiving this year, but haven't decided if they'll go full "spirit of the holiday season" and make it permanent, like Target has. Big picture: Just because stores are closed on Thanksgiving doesn't mean people won't shop. For the past two years the holiday was the third-largest online shopping day on the calendar, behind Cyber Monday and Black Friday.—MM | | | Robert Anasch/Unsplash If you live in Canada, love weed, and hate lines, then boy-oh-boy do we have the story for you. Uber is partnering with a Canadian cannabis retailer to allow customers in Ontario to order cannabis products through Uber Eats. You can't order special gummies as a side with your chicken parm just yet, though: It's pickup only for now, with orders ready to be retrieved within the hour they're placed in the Uber Eats app. Toronto-based Tokyo Smoke, which operates more than 50 dispensaries in Ontario, is handling the sales. The move marks Uber's first entry into the marijuana business. In October, the company closed its acquisition of alcohol delivery app Drizly for $1.1 billion, though Drizly's cannabis delivery service, Lantern, wasn't part of the deal. In the States when? Rest assured, Uber wants to eventually send you a vape with that breakfast burrito. In April, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said "when the road is clear" the company will absolutely look into cannabis delivery in the US. Blocking the road, of course, are rules prohibiting the purchase of federally illegal products with a credit card and the fact that only 18 states currently allow for recreational cannabis use.—MK | | | | ...to grandmother's short term rental we go. Make your inaugural year at the big kids' table a smash, and talk about how you own your very own piece of a vacation home…or better yet, several thousand of them. Here's the breakdown: reAlpha combines the strong asset class of real estate with the lucrative returns of the short-term rental model (think 70%+ returns) through fractional ownership in their properties. They also do free vacation nights at your property holdings. It's like a timeshare, only not terrible in every way. Missed Airbnb's friends & family round? Right now, reAlpha is fueling up. Hop on and become a shareholder before they take off into this $1.2T industry. It's not only sure to get Druncle Jim fired up, but also fend off all unwanted questions about when you're finally getting married. Invest in all the potential here. | | Stat: 44% of nonparents under 50 said they're not too likely or not at all likely to have children someday, according to a new Pew survey, up from 37% in 2018. A majority of people who don't want to have kids say the reason behind it is...they just don't want to have kids. Quote: "Just about everyone in Germany will probably be either vaccinated, recovered, or dead." German Health Minister Jens Spahn offered this misanthropic take as the country endures a fourth wave of Covid-19 that officials there are calling the worst so far. Fewer than 70% of Germans are vaccinated, a lower rate than peers such as France, Spain, and Italy. Read: The biggest social media accounts, by platform. (Axios) | | | NASA/Johns Hopkins APL As Earth's billionaires race to get humans living in space, NASA is doing some landscaping in preparation: Late tonight, the agency will launch a mission to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid and alter its course. It's NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a trial run for dealing with Earth-threatening asteroids without Bruce Willis having to sacrifice it all. DART will launch out of California around 10pm local time, via a SpaceX Falcon 9. If all goes well, the 59-foot DART craft will bonk into a 530-foot asteroid called Dimorphos next September at a speed of 15,000 mph. The goal is to slow Dimorphos down and alter its orbit around another, larger asteroid called Didymos. What did Dimorphos ever do to us? Nothing. It's a wrong-place, wrong-time situation—the asteroid, which isn't projected to threaten Earth, is simply at the ideal distance for observation. Any other asteroid cleanup ideas? Well, aside from hiring an elite team of drillers, sure. One idea, known as a "gravity tractor," would dispatch large spacecraft to clamp onto asteroids, altering their masses and therefore changing their trajectories.—MK | | - Samsung will reportedly build a massive ~$17 billion chipmaking plant in Taylor, TX. An official announcement could come as soon as today.
- Jeff Bezos donated $100 million to the Obama Foundation, the largest gift the foundation has ever received.
- Downtown San Francisco retailers have suffered a wave of major looting incidents over the past few days.
- More than 90% of federal employees had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of the White House's vaccination requirement deadline yesterday.
- Popeyes opened its first location in Britain over the weekend, and Londoners lined—er, queued up—for hours to taste that iconic fried chicken.
| | Don't act like you're above cozy snuggles. This holiday season, gift your loved ones Vuori—great looking clothes that feel like cozy snuggles. Oversized hoodies. Lounging pants. Performance joggers. Get 20% off your first order at Vuori.* Burglars, you get COAL. This holiday season, stop package thieves with SimpliSafe's robust, reliable home security. You can set it up in less time than it takes to deck the halls, and for a limited time get 50% off and an HD indoor SimpliCam for FREE.* Marvelous engineering: How to improve a Lego car so that it can overcome certain obstacles. Tech Tip Tuesday: The Brew Crew went to the NFT.NYC conference to find out whether NFTs truly are the future. Watch now. *This is sponsored advertising content | | | Mickey McDougall Beep boop: Did you know that humanity has gone from coining the term "robot" to building dancing robodogs...in the span of just 100 years? Whether you answered "1" or "0" to that question, we think we've got your gears turning. Want more? Our friends at Emerging Tech Brew put together a guide on all things robotics, breaking down its history, the industries that rely on automatons, and what's next in the robosphere. Give it a read here. | | Brew Mini: It's your final Mini crossword before the Thanksgiving break. Savor it. Paging Willy Wisconsin Miley Cyrus turns 29 today, but for many of her younger years we knew her simply as Hannah Montana...which got us thinking about all the other fictional characters named after US states. We'll give you a clue, and you have to name the character with a US state in their name. - Professor of archaeology with an aversion to snakes
- The only character to feature in all six of Frank Herbert's original Dune novels
- The former CEO of Dunder Mifflin/Sabre
- Rookie FBI agent played by Keanu Reeves in Point Break
- "Say hello to my little friend" speaker
| | | 1. Indiana Jones
2. Duncan Idaho
3. Robert California
4. Johnny Utah
5. Tony Montana | | HOW WAS TODAY'S NEWSLETTER? | | | Written by Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, and Matty Merritt Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
- HR Brew: analysis of the employee-employer relationship
- Marketing Brew: the buzziest happenings in marketing and advertising
- Retail Brew: retail trends from DTC to "buy now, pay later"
Tips for smarter living → - Money Scoop: your personal finance upgrade
- Sidekick: lifestyle recs from every corner of the internet
 Podcasts → Business Casual and Founder's Journal Accelerate Your Career → - MB/A: virtual 8-week program designed to broaden your skill set
| ADVERTISE // CAREERS // SHOP // FAQ
Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here.
View our privacy policy here.
Copyright © 2021 Morning Brew. All rights reserved.
22 W 19th St, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10011 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment